Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

drewdevault.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 174 posts

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#121

Post by erikb »

This is nice, but also naive. The current battle against data grabs is not about getting rid of data grabs, it's about giving the government control over data grabs, so they can compete with China and Russia when it comes to knowing their citizen. Facebooks problem is that they don't want to give the government this kind of access. So now they get negative PR, regulatory probes, etc.

Yes, decentralization would be the right solution. But this will always be discouraged by governments and corps alike, basically by everybody who has already lots of power and wants to have more power over your life.

As always you as a single person can choose to either be part of the ant swarm, giving someone else all power over you, but by that sharing in the ant swarms gains and luxuries as long as you are loyal, or by being self reliable but therefore also really be required to build everything by yourself that you really need and want to have.

If you decide for the first part there is really no reason not to give the person who has power over you also access to all your data. It's part of how a group works. And if the people at the top don't like you anymore then they will find ways to kick you out no matter what you do or keep secret. On the other hand its also part of the deal that the people above you don't use their power to peek into your life as long as you stay loyal and support their goals.

So FB either needs to accept to only live on the fringe instead of being the market dominator, or they need to accept that the government has bigger power and yield to them.

The only thing I feel one needs to be wary about is parasites who wants to keep the whole cake without sharing even a little bit with people below them. Trump is one such example. With these people you can't do either of the two paths, there's only the battle for who's stronger. And if you are like most people you don't really enjoy being in a constant struggle for survival.

It might very well be that Zuck is fighting against Trump here, and then that's the parasite situation and all Zuck could do is move out of the US, give up that market until Trump is gone again.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#122

Post by Tepix »

amelius wrote: post #105

But how is federation going to protect my privacy? E.g. will my friends list not end up on different servers of unknown origin?

Only your server needs to know your friends list. Unless you decide to publish this information to your friends. You are right that you are putting a certain amount of trust your friends' server choices. That's why having several trusted, non-commercial entities that run these nodes is important.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#123

Post by black_puppydog »

CookieMon wrote: post #101
black_puppydog wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, what you're describing is a problem of federated services. True decentralization has no servers, and thus none of those problems. Take twister for example [1]: * Identity management via blockchain (one of the use cases where IMHO this is a good, or at least defensible choice). * Metadata storage in a DHT * Content storage in torrent swarms None of this depends on any single peer/server. [1] http://twister.n…

> Take twister for example Y'all got any more of them "examples" I'm now aware of two social media alternatives that aren't dead accounts walking. Twister is in beta, but that looks interesting enough to play with and keep an eye on.

Yeah, I'm the first to acknowledge that most p2p social $things are doomed from the start and of the rest, only very few stand an actual chance. Twister has been in beta since it featured here on HN in december 2015 (?) but it has been usable the entire time, actually.

I chose twister as an example because its decentralization contrasts nicely/clearly with the federation being discussed in the parent.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#124

Post by tmikaeld »

Avamander wrote: post #116
tmikaeld wrote: post #28

I think that these points have to click before people move from FB: Simple -> Start the app and commicate (on all devices) Minimum features -> Feed, Chat, Groups, Events, Friends Fast -> No one will use a slow App Ownership -> All self-owned data can be removed from everywhere Decentralized -> And no one else can remove your data Privacy -> With simple sharing control So far, I've not seen anything that has all of th…

> Ownership -> All self-owned data can be removed from everywhere I HEAVILY disagree with this. Content generated by people obtains, at one point, historical value. Self-owning should end with personal details, anything involving someone else has to be kept because I think social media has no point if someone else can just now delete basically what are part of my memories. I know Facebook doesn't do this well either,…

There could be made a difference between private and public content and the private content should be deletable, it's private afterall.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#125

Post by Avamander »

tmikaeld wrote: post #124
Avamander wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ownership -> All self-owned data can be removed from everywhere I HEAVILY disagree with this. Content generated by people obtains, at one point, historical value. Self-owning should end with personal details, anything involving someone else has to be kept because I think social media has no point if someone else can just now delete basically what are part of my memories. I know Facebook doesn't do this well either,…

There could be made a difference between private and public content and the private content should be deletable, it's private afterall.

But private for whom? I mean, if someone who posted a group picture wants to delete it, it's private for that group, how should those cases be handled properly, without disrupting the UX for others.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#126

Post by simplify »

coldtea wrote: post #86
osteele wrote: post #29

The post repeats the myth “There is no promise that a company can make to its users that outweighs the fiduciary duty that obligates them to maximize profits by any means. The only defense of this is legislation and consumer choice.” As a counterpoint, see, for example, [1], that quotes the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby decision[2]: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the ex…

> The post repeats the myth “There is no promise that a company can make to its users that outweighs the fiduciary duty that obligates them to maximize profits by any means. The only defense of this is legislation and consumer choice.” That's only a myth in that it's not mandated. But it's still very much what almost every company will do, so it's a de facto (if not de jure) thing.

> But it's still very much what almost every company will do

But it didn't used to be like that – not even that long ago, either. In 1970 Friedman released his essay "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits". Look at the corporate behavior he was criticizing:

> The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers.

In other words, companies at that time WERE concerned about social responsibility, and not purely focused on profit. Friedman didn't like this; he called it "pure and unadulterated socialism".

Since that time this parasitic mentality was spread to and propagated by top schools like Harvard, dominating the world view of that next generation of businessmen/women. But it was never "a defacto" thing, and many are starting to catch on to the damage it has caused.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#127

Post by mxuribe »

zaarn wrote: post #99
HIPisTheAnswer wrote: post #68

Grep'd the articles and the comments (thus far) and I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned matrix, Check it out - matrix.org PS: Even more importantly, the Host Identity Protocol. The US army has been using it for over 10 years. If that doesnt speak volumes ...

Matrix still has too many problems. Synapse takes a buttload of memory to run (there is even warning in the README.md), all the clients are a joke and E2E encryption isn't part of the protocol, worse, it's an optional setting, not even default for private chats. Last I checked E2E isn't even available for group chats. Plus, the author talks about Mastodon, which solves an entirely different problem than matrix to beg…

To be fair, matrix's synapse server was always only supposed to be the reference server...reference servers aren't always built for top-notch performance, just for admins/implementors to get understanding of protocol, etc. To address performance, the team is busy building a matrix server in Go; see https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite

I do agree that mastodon and matrix - of which I'm a fan of both - solve for different scenarios. Mastodon replaces twitter; sort of short social media bursts/broadcasts. While matrix replaces slack (and other chat platforms like xmpp). I've always seen matrix as a modern-day irc; also allowing expansion and enhancement via plugins, and programmability like good ol' irc is/was.

ActivityPub was only recently approved, so can't expect every project to instantly support it; though to be fair it has been on many projects' radar well before its approval by w3c. I truthfully haven't followed the latest matrix news, so not sure if support for activitypub is coming soon. I do feel that supporting activityPub really make it that much more powerful of a protocol AND platform...but i'm sure that's not a trivial matter.

If you haven't played around with clients for matrix (such as the Riot clients), i suggest you give it a try. Riot keeps getting better and better with each new release.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#129

Post by AHMagic »

jake-low wrote: post #12
AHMagic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point is valid, but we still live in a world where we can call Verizon phones with AT&T phones; send e-mails to Gmail users with Yahoo; and send mail with UPS instead of USPS. With those means of communication, we still have control over our providers. There is no control within Facebook's ecosystem. Similar with AOL, if you don't use Facebook, you're necessarily out of the loop, and I don't feel comfortable wit…

> and send mail with UPS instead of USPS Not to detract from your point, just thought you might be interested to know that USPS actually has a legally-protected partial monopoly on the right to carry letters (18 U.S. Code § 1696). An exemption was added in 1979 allowing private carriers to deliver "extremely urgent" mail. This is why UPS and FedEx express mail envelopes bear that text on their front. Apart from this…

Interesting, thanks.

Re: Achtung: Decentralize, decentralize, decentralize

#130

Post by AHMagic »

lamename wrote: post #56
AHMagic wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have decentralization in three primary forms of communication: phone, mail, and e-mail. They worked great in 1998. Why can't they work great in 2018?

They can work but people have largely moved from them because mobile/Internet based platforms are more convenient. Just as people can travel by horse and carriage but most prefer the convenience of car. This is what happens as technology progresses. I don't think the solution here is to abandon imperfect technology in favor of old, but to improve upon it.

I hear what you're saying, but the analogy doesn't hold because we no longer need horses. In order to use Facebook, you have to sign up with an e-mail and typically a phone number (and in many cases, a photo ID, birth certificate, etc.)

If we need e-mails and phone numbers to sign up for social media, then we don't actually need the social media. We can go back to simply using the numbers and e-mails.

Post reply on HN